Category Archives: New York, NY
Start/Finish of “Incognito,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″ image, 50″ x 70″ framed
C-print and preliminary charcoal sketch
Finished
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Start/Finish of “Blind Faith,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″ image, 50″ x 70″ framed
Beginnings
Finished and signed (lower left)
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Pearls from artists* # 208
View from One World Trade Center
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
PC: In your painting, you’ve always kept this speed of movement. One senses that you work something out slowly, deep down, that it’s hard work, but there’s always something fresh about its expression.
HM: That’s because I revise my notion several times over. People often add or superpose – completing things without changing their plan, whereas I rework my plan every time. I never get tired. I always start again, working from the previous state. I try to work in a contemplative state, which is very difficult: contemplation is inaction, and I act in contemplation.
In all the studies I’ve made from my own ideas, there’s never been a faux pas because I’ve always unconsciously had a feeling for the goal; I’ve made my way toward it the way one heads north, following the compass. What I’ve done, I’ve done by instinct, always with my sights on a goal I still hope to reach today. I’ve completed my apprenticeship now. All I ask is four or five years to realize that goal.
PC: Delacroix said that too. Great artists never look back.
HM: Delacroix also said – ten years after he’d left the place – “I’m just beginning to see Morocco.” Rodin said to an artist, “You need to stand back a long way for sculpture.” To which the student replied, “Master, my studio is only ten meters wide.”
Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview, Henri Matisse with Pierre Courthion, edited by Serge Guilbaut, translated by Chris Miller
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Q: What significance do the folk art figures that you collect during your travels have for you?
Barbara’s studio
A: I am drawn to each figure because it possesses a powerful presence that resonates with me. I am not sure exactly how or why, but I know each piece I collect has lessons to teach.
Who made this thing? How? Why? Where? When? I feel connected to each object’s creator and curiosity leads me to become a detective and an archaeologist to find out more about them and to figure out how to best use them in my work.
The best way I can describe it: after nearly three decades of seeking out, collecting, and using these folk art figures as symbols in my work, the entire process has become a rich personal journey towards gaining greater knowledge and wisdom.
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Pearls from artists* # 207
Barbara’s studio
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
More than in any other vocation, being an artist means always starting from nothing. Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that’s given as a task… An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.
“What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernandez’s Magnificent Commencement Address,” by Maria Popova in “brainpickings”
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Start/Finish of “Broken,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″
First day’s work on “Broken”
“Broken,” completed but unsigned
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Q: What’s on the easel today?
Work in progress
A: I am still in the early stages of a large pastel painting. After visiting Peru and Miami for three weeks, it has taken a few days to readjust and get back into my work routine.
In case you’re wondering, the undistinguished gray shape, roughly center left, is a placeholder for a stone figure found at a shaman’s shop in Chinchero, Peru. When I took this photo, the figure was at my apartment instead of in the studio (and I need to see the figure to paint it).
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Pearls from artists* # 204
Barbara’s studio with work in progress
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
It has been said that science helps us understand what we can do; the arts and humanities – our culture and values – help us decide what to do. Studying the arts and humanities develops critical-thinking skills and nimble habits of mind, provides historical and cultural perspective and fosters the ability to analyze, synthesize and communicate.
As author Daniel Pink observed, “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers… The future belongs to a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big-picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
David J. Skorton, Director of the Smithsonian Institution in “What Do We Value?” Museum, May/June 2016
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Start/Finish of “Alone Together,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 20″ x 26″
Initial charcoal sketch on sandpaper
Finished painting
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Q: Can you describe a single habit that you believe contributes to your professional success?
Barbara’s studio with work in progress
A: It’s probably the fact that I keep regular studio hours. Contrary to the cliche of artists working in spurts, I continually work in the studio at least seven hours a day, five days a week, with Wednesdays and Sundays as my days off. I devote another two hours or so in the mornings and evenings for art business tasks: email, sending out jpegs, social media, etc. I always remember something Katharine Hepburn said: “Without discipline there is no life.”
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